Just a month and half into 2012, emerging local currency bonds have already returned 9 percent, one of best performing asset classes. But the rally has further to go, says J.P. Morgan which runs the most widely used emerging debt indices. The bank is now predicting its benchmark local currency debt index, the GBI-EM, to end the year with returns of 16 percent, upping its original expectation for 11.9 percent.

Maybe not as much as you think, if we are talking purely from a equity return point of view — according to the new research that analysed 112 years of the financial assets history released by Credit Suisse and London Business School this week.

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Japan has not been a sexy destination for investment. In an environment of rising sovereign risk, Japan’s huge debt burden (+200% and rising) and lack of triple-A rating (Japan is rated AA-, Aa3 and AA by the main rating agencies) are not something that would attract the world’s investors, including the powerful central bank reserve managers.

from MacroScope:

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Currency speculators boosted bets against the euro to a record high in the latest week of data (to end December 27) and built up the biggest long dollar position since mid-2010, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Here -- courtesy of Reuters' graphics whiz Scott Barber, is what happens to the euro when shorts build up:

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Signs of the wholesale funding stress are cropping up in the FX swaps market, with the premium for swapping euro LIBOR into dollar LIBOR over 3 months (so-called cross currency swap) rising to 141.5 basis points, which is the post-Lehman Brothers high.

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Whether or not it’s likely or even a good idea, talk of Greece leaving the euro is no longer taboo in either financial or political circles. What is more, anxiety over the future of the single currency has reached such a pitch since the infection of the giant Italian bond market that there are many investors talking openly of an unraveling of the entire bloc. But against such an amplified “tail risk”, it’s remarkable how stable world financial markets have been over the past few turbulent weeks — at least outside the ailing sovereign debt markets in question.

from Jeremy Gaunt:

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Twitter does have some very strange Trends. These are the things that appear on the right-hand side of the page that show what people are talking about. They more they talk, the more likely it is that something will get listed. More often than not they are about celebrities such as Justin Bieber.

from MacroScope:

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Global foreign exchange has always been one of the biggest markets in the world but its exponential growth keeps accelerating. The triennial survey by the Bank for International Settlements shows global foreign exchange market turnover leapt 20 percent to $4 trillion, compared with $3.3 trillion three years ago.